There appears to be something rotten in the state of Weibo (China’s 140-character social network rip-off of Twitter), and according to a short list of Chinese celebrities that rotten something is Apple. According to Taiwanese film star Peter Ho, for example, Apple has “so many tricks in its after-sales services. As an Apple fan, I’m hurt.” The complaints surfaced after an exposé was broadcast on the official CCTV channel that said Apple was abusing Chinese consumers by not replacing broken iPhones, and instead just fixing them.

But Ho’s tweet had a strange ending: “Post at 8:20″…as if he’d copied and pasted text from an email, perhaps, and accidentally included the instruction to post at that time. Which, coincidentally, was the same time that other celebrities posted anti-Apple comments. Perhaps there’s something rotten in an anti-Apple campaign too.

No one yet knows what the source of this initiative is, but it does seem conspiratorial. Sina Weibo itself then began censoring mentions of the “8:20 party” as Chinese commentors began to notice the Apple-smear. It’s also not known if the CCTC documentary was based on truth or a distorted version of it.

What’s your take on this? Do you believe it’s just a coincidence that anti-Apple comments appeared at the same time?